-LRB- Mental Floss -RRB- -- 1 . In case you have n't read `` The Lorax , '' it 's widely recognized as Dr. Seuss ' take on environmentalism and how humans are destroying nature . Loggers were so upset about the book that some groups within the industry sponsored `` The Truax , '' a similar book -- but from the logging point of view .

Dr. Seuss ' widow , Audrey Geisel , accepted his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2004 .

Another interesting fact : the book used to contain the line , `` I hear things are just as bad up in Lake Erie , '' but 14 years after the book was published , the Ohio Sea Grant Program wrote to Seuss creator Theodore Geisel , and told him how much the conditions had improved and implored him to take the line out . Geisel agreed and said that it would n't be in future editions .

2 . Somehow , Geisel 's books find themselves in the middle of controversy . The line `` A person 's a person , no matter how small , '' from `` Horton Hears a Who ! , '' has been used as a slogan for anti-abortion organizations . It 's often questioned whether that was Seuss ' intent in the first place , but when he was still alive , he threatened to sue an anti-abortion group unless they removed his words from their letterhead .

Karl ZoBell , the attorney for Dr. Seuss ' interests and for his widow , Audrey Geisel , says that she does n't like people to `` hijack Dr. Seuss characters or material to front their own points of view . '' Mental Floss : 5 stories about Seuss himself

3 . `` If I Ran the Zoo , '' published in 1950 , is the first recorded instance of the word `` nerd . ''

4 . `` The Cat in the Hat '' was written because Dr. Seuss thought the famous Dick and Jane primers were insanely boring . Because kids were n't interested in the material , they were n't exactly compelled to use it repeatedly in their efforts to learn to read . So , `` The Cat in the Hat '' was born .

5 . Bennett Cerf , Dr. Seuss ' editor , bet him that he could n't write a book using 50 words or less . `` The Cat in the Hat '' was pretty simple , after all , and it used 225 words . Not one to back down from a challenge , Mr. Geisel started writing and came up with `` Green Eggs and Ham '' -- which uses exactly 50 words .

The 50 words , by the way , are : a , am , and , anywhere , are , be , boat , box , car , could , dark , do , eat , eggs , fox , goat , good , green , ham , here , house , I , if , in , let , like , may , me , mouse , not , on , or , rain , Sam , say , see , so , thank , that , the , them , there , they , train , tree , try , will , with , would , you .

6 . It 's often alleged that `` Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now ! '' was written specifically about Richard Nixon , but the book came out only two months after the whole Watergate scandal . It 's unlikely that the book could have been conceived of , written , edited and mass produced in such a short time .

Also , Seuss never admitted that the story was originally about Nixon . That 's not to say he did n't understand how well the two flowed together . In 1974 , he sent a copy of Marvin K. Mooney to his friend Art Buchwald at the Washington Post . In it , he crossed out `` Marvin K. Mooney '' and replaced it with `` Richard M. Nixon , '' which Buchwald reprinted in its entirety .

7 . `` Yertle the Turtle '' = Hitler ? Yep . If you have n't read the story , here 's a little overview : Yertle is the king of the pond , but he wants more . He demands that other turtles stack themselves up so he can sit on top of them to survey the land . Mack , the turtle at the bottom , is exhausted . He asks Yertle for a rest ; Yertle ignores him and demands more turtles for a better view .

Eventually , Yertle notices the moon and is furious that anything dare be higher than himself , and is about ready to call for more turtles when Mack burps . This sudden movement topples the whole stack , sends Yertle flying into the mud , and frees the rest of the turtles from their stacking duty .

Dr. Seuss actually said Yertle was a representation of Hitler . Despite the political nature of the book , none of that was disputed at Random House -- what was disputed was Mack 's burp . No one had ever let a burp loose in a children 's book before , so it was a little dicey . In the end , obviously , Mack burped . Mental Floss : The Dr. Seuss quiz

8 . `` The Butter Battle Book '' is one I had never heard of , perhaps with good reason : it was pulled from the shelves of libraries for a while because of the reference to the Cold War and the arms race .

Yooks and Zooks are societies who do everything differently . The Yooks eat their bread with the butter-side up and the Zooks eat their bread with the butter-side down . Obviously , one of them must be wrong , so they start building weapons to outdo each other : the `` Tough-Tufted Prickly Snick-Berry Switch , '' the `` Triple-Sling Jigger , '' the `` Jigger-Rock Snatchem , '' the `` Kick-A-Poo Kid '' , the `` Eight-Nozzled Elephant-Toted Boom Blitz , '' the `` Utterly Sputter '' and the `` Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo . ''

The book concludes with each side ready to drop their ultimate bombs on each other , but the reader does n't know how it actually turns out .

9 . `` Oh The Places You 'll Go '' is the final Seuss book published before he passed away . Published in 1990 , it sells about 300,000 copies every year because so many people give it to college and high school grads .

10 . No Dr. Seuss post would be complete without a mention of `` How the Grinch Stole Christmas ! '' Frankenstein 's Monster himself , Boris Karloff , provided the voice of the Grinch and the narration for the movie . Seuss was a little wary of casting him because he thought his voice would be too scary for kids . If you 're wondering why they sound a bit different , it 's because the sound people went back to the Grinch 's parts and removed all of the high tones in Karloff 's voice . That 's why the Grinch sounds so gravelly .

Tony the Tiger , AKA Thurl Ravenscroft , is the voice behind `` You 're a Mean One , Mr. Grinch . '' He received no credit on screen , so Dr. Seuss wrote to columnists in every major U.S. newspaper to tell them exactly who had sung the song . Mental Floss : How cereal transformed American culture

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Dr. Seuss wrote `` The Cat in the Hat '' because of bet over 50-word book

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Boris Karloff is voice of main character in `` How the Grinch Stole Christmas ! ''

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Author agreed to remove negative line about Lake Erie from `` The Lorax ''